Tag Archives: Greenpeace

Amazingly, in just one week we already have more than 330,000 signatures. But we’re doing more than circulating a petition, like sending our ships to the arctic to support research and raise awareness.

We’ve released the fourth annual ranking of Canada’s eight largest supermarket chains on their seafood policies. While seven of the eight chains got a passing grade, Overwaitea is leading the pack. See how your supermarket ranks.

Enter our 2013 calendar photo contest. Submit your best images of Canadian wildlife and landscapes for a chance to appear in our annual desk calendar, sent out to thousands of our supporters every year.

In the last 30 years, we’ve lost as much as three-quarters of the floating ice cap at the top of the world. The volume of that sea ice measured by satellites in the summer, when it reaches its smallest, has shrunk so fast that scientists say it’s now in a ‘death spiral’.

For over 800,000 years, ice has been a permanent feature of the Arctic ocean. It’s melting because of our use of dirty fossil fuel energy, and in the near future it could be ice free for the first time since humans walked the Earth. This would be not only devastating for the people, polar bears, narwhals, walruses and other species that live there – but for the rest of us too.

The ice at the top of the world reflects much of the sun’s heat back into space and keeps our whole planet cool, stabilising the weather systems that we depend on to grow our food. Protecting the ice means protecting us all.

To save the Arctic, we have to act today. Sign now.

OIL DRILLINGA new Arctic oil rush is starting. Shell, BP, Exxon, Gazprom, Rosneft and others want to risk a devastating Arctic oil spill for only three years’ worth of oil. The same dirty energy companies that caused the Arctic to melt in the first place are looking to profit from the disappearing ice. They want to open up a new oil frontier to get at a potential 90 billion barrels of oil. That’s a lot of money to them, but it’s only three years’ worth of oil to the world.

Previously classified government documents say dealing with oil spills in the freezing waters is “almost impossible” and inevitable mistakes would shatter the fragile Arctic environment.

To drill in the Arctic, oil companies have to drag icebergs out the way of their rigs and use giant hoses to melt floating ice with warm water. If we let them do this, a catastrophic oil spill is just a matter of time.

We’ve seen the extreme damage caused by the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon disasters – we cannot let this happen in the Arctic.

We need a ban on oil drilling in Arctic waters. Sign now.

INDUSTRIAL FISHING
Industrial fishing fleets are starting to trawl Arctic waters. Local people have fished sustainably in the Arctic for thousands of years, but that could be threatened if we let giant fishing companies exploit the Arctic ocean.

We need a ban on unsustainable industrial fishing in Arctic waters. Sign now.

Conflict
Arctic nations are preparing for possible conflict over the Arctic. As the Wikileaks cables show, the US has spoken of “increased military threats in the Arctic” and Russia has predicted “armed intervention” in the future.

Countries are spending billions on Arctic weaponry, threatening the long-term peace of the region. Nuclear-powered ice-breakers, submarines and fighter jets are being purchased by Arctic states with overlapping claims on the area around the North Pole.

The best way to maintain the peace there is to make its resources off-limits. That’s why we’re campaigning for a global sanctuary and a ban on oil drilling and industrial fishing.

Just like in Antarctica, we need an Arctic Ocean dedicated to peace and science.

No country owns the Arctic. It should stay that way. Sign now.

YOU CAN SAVE THE ARCTIC
There is no government or army to protect the Arctic, only countries and companies looking to carve it up. Help us plant a Flag for the Future at the North Pole. There are seven billion of us on our planet. Each and every one of us is affected by the health of the Arctic: by reflecting the sun’s rays off its ice, the Arctic shapes our weather patterns and the food we grow and eat.

But the Arctic is the frontline of our warming climate – heating up twice as fast as anywhere else. It’s also the frontline of the oil industry – one of the dirty, dead fuels responsible for the melting in the first place.

By stopping the new oil rush in the Arctic we are creating the conditions for a radical change in how we power our lives, accelerating the clean energy revolution that will fuel the future for our children.

We know we’re going up against the most powerful countries and companies in the world.

But together we have something stronger than any country’s military or any company’s budget. Our shared concern for the planet we leave our children transcends all the borders that divide us and makes us – together – the most powerful force today.

That is why we’re taking your name – and a million others – to the North Pole with a Flag for the Future designed by the youth of the world. It will show that our shared vision of a green, peaceful, healthy planet depends on an Arctic protected by us all.

But the flag is only a symbol. We’ll be taking your voice to every political leader in the world to ask them where they stand on the Arctic. One by one, as our movement gathers momentum, we’ll turn towards the United Nations, where we’ll demand a global deal to protect the Arctic.

30 years ago we launched a similar campaign to protect the Antarctic. Nobody thought we would succeed, but we did, and we created a world park around the South Pole.

Tar sands

Greenpeace is calling on oil companies and the Canadian government to stop the tar sands and end the industrialization of a vast area of Indigenous territories, forests and wetlands in northern Alberta.

The tar sands are huge deposits of bitumen, a tar-like substance that’s turned into oil through complex and energy-intensive processes that cause widespread environmental damage. These processes pollute the Athabasca River, lace the air with toxins and convert farmland into wasteland. Large areas of the Boreal forest are clearcut to make way for development in the tar sands, the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.

Greenpeace is also concerned with the social and health costs of the tar sands. First Nations communities in the tar sands report unusually high levels of rare cancers and autoimmune diseases. Their traditional way of life is threatened. Substance abuse, suicide, gambling and family violence have increased in the tar sands. Meanwhile, the thousands of workers brought in by oil companies face a housing crisis in northern Alberta.

Enbridge Inc.’s tar sands tanker pipeline proposal threatens to allow a 30 per cent expansion in tar sands development. Enbridge’s tar sands pipeline would span 1,170 kilometres from Hardisty, Alberta to Kitimat, in the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia. Over the past decade, Enbridge’s own pipelines spilled an average of more than once a week. The pipeline would cross over 1,000 rivers and streams and the Rocky Mountains on the way to B.C.’s pristine coastline. The pipeline would bring more than 200 crude oil tankers through some of the world’s most treacherous waters each year.

How Greenpeace works to stop the tar sands

Pressuring governments: The governments of Alberta and Canada actively promote tar sands development and ignore international commitments Canada has made to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Through direct action, we draw international attention to government climate crimes in the tar sands and demand change.

Educating shareholders: We meet with Canadian and international shareholders in oil companies and discuss the investment risks associated with the tar sands.

Working with impacted communities: We reach out to landowners and First Nations affected by the tar sands and stand in solidarity with them.

This morning, we sent Prime Minister Stephen Harper a dramatic message: Save the coast, no tar sand pipelines.

Activists rappelled from Vancouver’s iconic Lions Gate Bridge to unfurl a massive banner over the path of tar sands crude oil tankers into the Burrard Inlet. The action brings attention to the devastating effects that new tar sands pipelines and supertankers would have on our communities, our environment and our climate.

The Harper government is doing all it can to shut down opposition to these pipelines and the expanded tar sands operations they would herald. We can’t let this happen. We need your help, right now, to get the word out to Canadians.

An expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline would bring over 350 supertankers, some three times as large as the Exxon Valdez, through Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet each year.

The proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline would bring up to 250 supertankers every year through some of the most difficult waters waters to navigate on the planet. Over the past decade Enbridge’s pipelines have spilled, on average, more than once a week.

We don’t want an economy dependent on destroying our land, poisoning our rivers, and fuelling climate change. We need to say no to tar sands pipelines and tankers and embrace the green energy future Canada deserves.

Together with organizations from across the country, we’re speaking out against Prime Minister Harper’s efforts to gut environmental protection.

What if your voice was taken away from you?

Right now, the Harper government is pushing through a bill to weaken many of the country’s most important environmental protection measures. He wants to silence Canadian voices who defend nature.

The proposed budget implementation bill suppresses public debate and fast-tracks risky projects like oil pipelines. These proposed measures threaten the wildlife, land, water, air and climate we all depend on.

On June 4th we are taking a stand against this attempt to take away our voices. Along with other environmental organizations and other non-profits as part of the Black Out, Speak Out campaign across the country, we are blacking out our website for 24 hours.

SILENCE IS NOT AN OPTION.

If you believe that our environmental laws require scientific evidence and public discussion, speak out. If you care about the protection of nature and the right to dissent, please add your voice to ours now.